The mood was celebratory when MBTA oversight board members unanimously declared their support for transforming the commuter rail system, a blue-sky vision featuring zero emissions and more frequent service using electrified trains.
Transit advocates cheered the November 2019 move — even if the board votes came in the form of nonbinding resolutions with no funding attached — as a win. T leaders at the time said that new trains could arrive in two to four years. The votes were described at the time (by this reporter) as “historic.”
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, safety failures threw the T into chaos, and a new governor took office and set about transforming the agency. It seemed like the vision of a clean, frequent commuter rail system that did not rely on fossil fuels would have to wait, shifted to the back burner in favor of putting out fires and repairing those infuriating slow zones that suddenly seemed to be everywhere.
Today, the MBTA is again thinking about big commuter rail upgrades and is now inching toward a major early milestone that could serve as a proof of concept for the agency’s broader ambitions: acquiring battery-powered trains for the shortest route in the commuter rail system, the 9.2-mile Fairmount Line that runs almost entirely within Boston city limits.
It’s a project years, if not decades, in the making, one that could bring more frequent transit service and slash greenhouse gas emissions in parts of the city with significant Black populations saddled with few connectivity options. But the first new vehicles will not arrive for testing of their cutting-edge technologyuntil a full decade after the vote to forge ahead with electrification, and the cost for the new vehicles on a single commuter rail line will exceed an eye-poppingthree-quarters of a billion dollars.
Did something go haywire, or is this just the price — and pace — of a fundamentally transformative project?
To Sen. Brendan Crighton, one of the co-chairs of the Legislature’s Transportation Committee, the work has “absolutely taken longer than I hoped.”
“But you also have to look back. The previous administration, I don’t believe, prioritized electrification,” Crighton said, referring to former Gov. Charlie Baker’s team. “In fairness, COVID hit, which delayed some things. So it’s frustrating, but I don’t think it’s a lack of will of this current administration.”
More Context
- Where the rubber meets the road: MBTA questions if electric bus mandate is worth the tradeoffs (March 2026)
- T hires Keolis to electrify Fairmount commuter rail line (July 2024)
Published by MassINC